A Peaceful Semester

October dragged by at Blackthorne Academy in a string of dreary, gray days, silent to a terrifying degree. That violent thunderstorm that night seemed to have swept away the very last fragile spark of resistance from the defeated, returning the valley to a calm, suffocating, yet intensely orderly atmosphere. Frost began forming a thin, silver-gray layer over the gravel roads and the gloomy stone ledges of the buildings.

Cassian buried himself in a numbingly predictable routine of work and study. He woke at five in the morning, while the entire dormitory was still plunged into a deep abyss of darkness and bone-chilling cold. He trudged down to the basement kitchen, scraping congealed lard off the bottoms of giant stew pots and scrubbing stacks of porcelain plates submerged in tubs of freezing soapy water. He hastily ate a dry piece of dark bread, took a sip of weak tea, and carried his books into the Academic class.

He grew noticeably quieter, almost fading into an invisible ghost among the students. During recess, while the freshmen chatted animatedly about exam prompts or watched the Guard Team training out in the yard, Cassian sat silently in the far corner of the arched hallway, diligently taking notes or staring blankly out at the distant, frost-covered pine ridge. He made no friends, engaged in no debates, and strictly avoided catching the eyes of monitors or Student Council members.

Once a week, like clockwork early on Saturday mornings while the entire dormitory was still bustling with the roaring sound of running water in the communal bathroom, Cassian would secretly make his way to the dark corner of the shed behind the kitchen to borrow old man Pike's flip phone.

His mother's health recovered with miraculous speed. Through rapid two-minute calls, her voice grew clearer, warmer, and overflowing with life by the day. She mentioned that Uncle Daniel had cleared all the paperwork to move her out of Mercy Hospital, relocating her to a quiet little house in suburban Illinois—a place with white wooden fences, a small sun-drenched marigold garden, and no lingering shadows of old fears.

During a call mid-month, his mother hesitantly brought up his father Edward. After Cassian left, the police came looking for Edward twice to question him about what had really happened at the foot of those stairs. Yet somehow, all investigative files were quietly dropped soon after in a bizarrely smooth fashion. Edward was released after a few hours of questioning, but he vanished completely from town, selling off all his belongings and leaving for parts unknown, as if an invisible, powerful hand had intervened from behind the scenes, sweeping away every dirty trace to bury the past.

Cassian didn't care. He didn't bother asking further or wondering who had pulled those strings. All he needed to know was that his mother was completely safe, and that brutal father of his would never be able to touch her again.

Inside Room 104, life unfolded with a strangely peaceful, methodical rhythm.

Ronald Fisk retained his endless, curious rambling that no one could shake. He still loved whispering every evening before curfew, complaining about the bland soup in the cafeteria or asking Cassian for the secret to avoiding a tongue-lashing from the slimy cook. Cassian would merely utter a few polite grunts to get it over with, turning his face toward the wall.

Karl Brandt, meanwhile, grew increasingly triumphant and arrogant. He spent almost all his free time following the Student Council around, cleaning their gear and carrying their documents. Thanks to his submissive flexibility, Karl was awarded a pale blue armband by Silas Ward—the mark of a high-ranking student apprentice. Returning to the room each night, Karl would lecture endlessly in a patronizing tone about how "familiar" he had become with Tessa Quill, how much she favored him, and how he had been graciously exempted by the Administration from heavy manual labor in the basement.

As for Leo, the pale boy residing by the arched window remained as motionless as a ghost. He never participated in the room's conversations, never complained, and never expressed emotion. But whenever Cassian walked past his bed, Leo would slowly raise his head, fixing his dark, deep-set eyes directly on him—a look holding quiet suspicion and the ultimate resignation of someone who understood far too many secrets.

Everyone lived, operating like perfect, smooth gears inside a massive, ruthless machine.

Not a single soul in Room 104—or in all of Blackthorne Academy—ever mentioned the name Albert Sterling again.

Albert's vacant bed in the corner of the room was swept clean to absolute perfection, leaving behind not a speck of dust nor a single trace. Sometimes, during long, quiet nights, Cassian wondered if he had merely imagined that arrogant student with the thick glasses, or if Albert Sterling had truly been nothing more than a phantom conjured by his imagination during those first few days.

On the final night of the autumn semester, the bitter cold surged back violently, forming sharp, thin icicles along the window frame of Room 104.

The heavy wooden door creaked open with a dry screech. A slender new freshman with narrow shoulders and wide, wide eyes filled with confusion and terror was led into the room by a monitor. He timidly set his small wooden trunk at the foot of the vacant bed in the corner—the very bed that had once belonged to Albert Sterling.

The new kid quickly burrowed into the rough blanket, pulling it high up to his neck, his entire body trembling uncontrollably before the bone-chilling cold of the stone room and the ice-cold stares of his roommates.

DONG... DONG... DONG...

The seventh bell crashed down furiously and heavily once more from the black stone chapel tower. Immediately after, that bizarre, mournful hymn rose up again, slithering through the cracks of the rotting wooden door, blanketing the murky gloom of the winter night.

Cassian lay on his familiar straw mattress. He squeezed the rough gray blanket slightly, slowly shifting his eyes toward the bed in the corner. He saw the new freshman's shoulders shaking with fear, saw the still, slanting shadow of Leo by the window, and heard Karl Brandt's steady, satisfied breathing.

Cassian quietly turned his face to the wall.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of the freezing air, and drifted off into a peaceful sleep. He had been obedient. He had strictly adhered to the Night Law. He had received what he craved most: his mother was safe, and he was still breathing.

He had survived a semester at Blackthorne Academy.

The remaining three years passed like a long, peaceful, hazy dream. Cassian grew into a quiet, punctual, and diligent young man. He graduated from Blackthorne Academy with high honors, silently accepting his suitcase from an intensely aged Mr. Pike, and stepped past the mossy iron gates without ever receiving a single write-up point or having his name recorded in the crimson leather notebook. He returned to his mother, taking a normal bookkeeping job in a small town in Illinois, living a quiet, storm-free life.

Only a single incident occurred early on Graduation Day—one that would haunt Cassian for all the years to come.

That morning, Leo was found to have hanged himself right from the iron bars of Room 104's arched window, in the exact corner of the bed where he had sat motionlessly for three years. Leo's body swayed gently in the cold autumn wind, his dark eyes open wide, staring fixedly out toward the black stone chapel tower, a bitter, haunting smile lingering on his lips.

No suicide note left behind. No explanation offered.

Cassian held his suitcase and walked out the school gates amidst the echoing graduation bells, his heart weighed down by an overwhelming, profound sense of lingering ambiguity. He had survived, holding his diploma to return to the human world, but he would never, ever understand why Leo had chosen death on the very day of freedom, what horrifying nightmare those dragged away after the seventh bell had ultimately faced, or what true nature lay buried behind the stone walls of Blackthorne.

THE END. If you want to know what really happened that night, turn back to Chapter 7 and choose again.